Impressive visuals. Surprisingly, the thing that impressed me most was the "Advanced virtual surround sound audio from the display’s two built-in speakers" (Dolby on). It was quite an improvement from the Visio 39" LED backlit model from 2008, where I couldn't even discern stereo, and the sound volume was slightly low. This is a midrange tier product, there are better and worse models with HDR & local dimming. I find the brightness to be well-suited for my average-lit living room, with the brightness at the default 50% (more causes wash-out) and the backlighting set to "high," even though our old one was only rated at 300nits brightness (same rating as the lower-tier - cheap - product) which seemed lacking when the sun shined in on the room behind. A word of caution about that though, "high dynamic range" (HDR) means that not only are the darker areas darker, but the brighter areas are quite a bit brighter too, meaning only 1000nits on the brightest white spots, perhaps comparable to 500nits non-HDR. The higher-tier product had a rating of 3000nits (and well out of my price range) and I would assume that would be too bright for viewing in dark rooms (such as night without sufficient ambient light).
The second-best surprising feature is the ability to "cast" the TV stream from compatible (newer) smartphones - and it is surprisingly easy. "Discovery Go" was an app that I wanted, for the "Battlebots" show, not available within the TV menus, but my wife discovered she could "cast" it from her Galaxy (S6?), with the caveat that the TV remote will not pause, FF, or rewind; nor chose episodes - it all had to be done from the smartphone.
Also, I did my homework and compared to customer reviews of other brands and tiers, and I can say I have not noticed any "bloom" or "flashlighting" around the bright spots of the screen, a problem well-known with budget HDR tiers; the 200 individually-dimmed backlights seem to do a great job of it without introducing bloom.
Now for the negatives, which are minor. The "Smartcast" app options are quite limited - I compared to Samsung and they have an "app store" where you can supposedly get "thousands." It is less than dozens with Visio. But the same tier Samsung model was well beyond my price range, and even then about 8% of 2019 model reviewers complained of spots on their screen that looked like obvious "shadows" when the screen was filled with the same color/brightness, and the Samsung 2020 models lacked the anti-glare coating that the 2019's had and they claimed it degraded the appearance quite a bit. Also, I don't like the way that pause, FF, and rewind are handled on the Visio remote (watching through apps).
That said, we've found that we can (so far) get to other television show/movie services through some of the included apps. For instance: you can get "CBS all-access" through Amazon Prime.
All in all, I find it a GREAT TV for my mid-level budget, and I am really enjoying it a lot. Sure it could've been better - but for double the price, and then it could've been TOO bright (turning down the brightness could possibly cause "wash-out," I just don't know).
